Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Bihar and Rajasthan are the top five states holding around 11 crore balance doses of Covid-19 vaccines, government data shows.
According to data shared by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in the Rajya Sabha, inventory of almost 23 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses is available with states across India.
Uttar Pradesh holds the highest number of unutilised Covid-19 vaccine doses with the balance standing at 2.9 crore, followed by West Bengal (2.5 crore), Maharashtra (2.2 crore), Bihar (1.80 crore), Rajasthan (1.43 crore), Tamil Nadu (1.35 crore) and Madhya Pradesh (1.1 crore).
Some of the states holding the highest inventory are also those with highest unvaccinated population, yet to take even the first shot of the two-dose Covid-19 vaccine.
For instance, Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India, has around 3.50 crore unvaccinated residents, followed by Bihar at 1.89 crore unvaccinated population. Other top states are Maharashtra (1.71 crore) and Tamil Nadu (1.24 crore).
While India has performed exceptionally well in administering over 100 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines (more than 125 crore doses have been administered so far), health experts had warned that it will get tougher to move ahead and vaccinate the remaining population.
“First 10, 20 or 70% is easy, but the last 10-20% is harder to do because here you are talking about the population that is difficult to reach (or convince) because of one or the other reason, or because they are the ones with highest level of vaccine hesitancy,” vaccine expert Dr Gagandeep Kang had earlier told News18.com.
However, Narendra Modi government’s door-to-door vaccination drive ‘Har Ghar Dastak’ has helped boost Covid-19 vaccinations.
According to the government data, first dose coverage has gone up by 5.9% since the launch of the initiative in October whereas the second dose coverage has increased by 11.7%.
Read all the Latest India News here
Comments
0 comment